The Dragon’s Milk Series
Susan Fletcher

The only bad thing about Susan Fletcher is that she isn’t very prolific. She has only released five books as far as I am aware. However, those books, including this trilogy — Dragon’s Milk, its prequel Flight of the Dragon Kyn, and its sequel Sign of the Dove — are charming and well-written. Each of these three loosely connected books centers around a girl or young woman with the unique ability to communicate with dragons. In a nutshell, for various reasons, the girls must make use of their powers of communication to save the misunderstood dragons from destruction. While locations are not given recognizable names, Flight of the Dragon Kyn presumably takes place somewhere in Scandinavia, while the other two appear to be set in Britain; the era has an authentic early-mediaeval feel.

The dragons of these books are not mystical or wicked beings, but charmingly mundane in their own fantastic way — they are much like other animals in their quirks, activities, and definite personalities. The stars of the stories are definitely the baby dragons, especially in the original book — they’re simply adorable! (And as a random note: Fletcher has a great knack for creating fantasy names that look and sound fantasy-ish, while remaining easy to pronounce! I love it.)

In sum, these books are fun, fast-paced, and well-written — all-around, a very enjoyable read, directed toward teens but probably enjoyable for older readers as well. Morally, there’s nothing much either way — they’re not awe-inspiring, but not lacking.